Matthew 5:33-37
Lev. 19:12 God was saying if you use My name in an oath or a promise you better not lie or not keep up your end of the oath. .
The Pharisees and religious leaders at the time would swear and not use God’s name but instead things like heaven, earth, Jerusalem, or themselves, then when they broke the promise, lied or did not follow through they would say they did not sin because they did not swear by God’s name
Jesus raises the bar “do not lie at all” and keep your promises in other words have integrity.
Lets look what Jesus says
-First your loop hole is not that bright. Vrs 34-36 these things all belong to God because He is the creator.
They were looking for loop holes in order to benefit themselves.
-The second thing Jesus is saying here is Yes be yes and No be no
Yes - follow through with commitments
No- don’t be afraid to stand up and say no
Jesus is saying as followers of Him we need to be people who have integrity.
Tonight I want to talk about integrity because our personal integrity reveals our heart.
Integrity is- adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
the state of being whole
in simplest form “Who you are when no one is around” Your beliefs are solidified and real when you do the same in private as you would in public.
A questions you can ask yourself is “would I do this if no one would ever find out?” What ever the answer to that is, that is a reflection of your heart and what God sees and that is your integrity.
In biblical times people had a way to find out the integrity of a pot, if it has cracks then it is not whole, is it a cracked pot, the merchants were trying to get rid of the cracked pots so it was not a waste to them so they would glaze over the cracks, in order to find out the integrity of the pot (if it was whole and good) the buyer would hold the pot up to the sunlight to see if they could tell if there were any cracks.
Well God holds us up to the light of His son to see if we are cracked pots, and when He sees the cracks He wants to work on the integrity of our hearts. The first step in having personal integrity is trusting in the truth of God’s word- Gospel
Unfortunately as believers in Jesus our personal integrity is constantly under attack.
In the 60s something crept into our society by way of a man in ministry an Episcopal priest named Joseph Fletcher, it was not a new idea but He wrote a book called Situation Ethics The basic premise or idea of the book is that as long as the greater good of love is achieved wrong and right are only based on the situation. For example Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor, Fletcher would say the rich had a lot of money the poor had none Robin Hood was displaying love to the poor by giving them the riches money. This seems loving unless your rich but Fletcher would say the greater love was achieved based on situation.
What Fletcher is proposing is that there is no absolute wrong or right it depends on the situation. As long as the outcome promotes love it is right. “The end justifies the means”
So in this book he came up with situations such as a women seducing and sleeping with a person from another government to get secrets to stop a war that would kill thousands. Moral compromise so the greater good is achieved.
There are several problems with this but the biggest one is that it is saying that you can’t rely on God. As believers we have to realize that God cares about our hearts and wants us to do the right thing and He will take care of the details.
George Muller in the 1800’s was a preacher, evangelist and philanthropist. He opened several orphanages and in his life saw 23,000 orphans educated. A man of great faith and integrity relied on God to provide his needs and for the needs of the orphans. One morning they did not have breakfast for the a rather large group or orphans and he sat down at the table and thanked the Lord for the food that He would provide, and no sooner did he say amen there was a knock at the door of a bakery delivery wagon that had a broken wheel and not be able to complete the deliveries and the food would go bad so he wanted to give the food to the orphans.
Muller could have went out before breakfast and stole, or manipulated, after all there are starving orphans. But he trusted God. Unfortunately we normally don’t live life like this and we lack the trust is God.
The situational line of thinking has penetrated our society and caused people to lack integrity because there are no absolutes therefore there is nothing to judge the purity of integrity so now we cannot even recognize integrity and sometimes we even call integrity stupidity. Football player illustration.
Goodness is the only investment that never fails. ~Henry David Thoreau
What are some things that compromise our integrity?
-Tragic situations should not compromise our integrity
Job 2:9 his wife,4:6 friend encourages him your integrity is your hope, Then in 25:4-5 Bildad asks Job the question how can a man be righteous before God? Job’s reply 27:5 says he will not put off his integrity or as we can say what is pure in his heart which is his trust in God Like us today if we trust in Christ in our heart we are righteous before Him. Then Job wants God to know his integrity 31:6 the real test of a person is how they respond when things do not go their way. So lets see where Job’s integrity comes from. 42:1-6 I reject myself and the idea I had that the Lord always rewards the righteous in this life. His integrity is that trusts God no matter what happens.
-Facing adversity or obstacles should not compromise our integrity Another OT example is found in Dan 3:16-18 Situational ethics
“Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the keys to living your life with integrity.”
“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”
-Other people should not make us compromise our integrity
1 Thess 2:4 Here Paul was saying we preach the Gospel not to please people but to please God. The Gospel is an unpopular message 2 Cor 2:16 says we are offensive to those who are dying because we are the aroma of Jesus.
Why would we listen to the world after all we learned in the last month and half that the world thinks we are crazy
So what does having integrity do for us?
Titus 2:6-8 others will not be able to say anything evil against us.
-Integrity provides security, we don’t have to worry about where we stand before God and others if we have integrity.
Pro 10:9 Romans 13:3 no reason to fear authorities if you have integrity
-You always know the right thing to do because you are resolved to do the right thing Proverbs 11:3
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. ~Mark Twain
Bottom line Proverbs 20:7 The righteous person walks in his integrity.
We see our integrity “who we are when no one is around” really sums up all the Matters of hearts”
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